Saturday, October 29, 2016

Best Laid Plans

On Wednesday, I was looking forward to having the whole day at home—well, except for a couple errands I needed to run. I was planning to spend all morning in my scrapbook room—afternoons are for reading and napping. Well, as they say…best laid plans…

My goal was to have my housework done and to be in my scrapbook room by 8 a.m. I was just finishing up on my computer when I decided to do the software update that was recommended for OS Sierra. Once that was complete, it required me to log back in to my computer. That was weird right away. All of these things kept popping up asking me for passwords—no passwords seemed to work, but I was able to continue on anyway.

When I got to my mail, I could not receive or send it. It kept asking me for the password—then would not recognize the password. I checked my little password book (adapted from an old address book--scroll down to idea #3) to make sure it was correct. I tried my computer password—didn’t work. I tried a couple other passwords that I’ll often use. Nothing worked. I try to have just one password for everything, but that doesn’t always work either. You know how that goes—“you need one upper case letter, one lower case letter, a symbol, a number and a drop of blood from a virgin! Everything seems to require a different type of password. Sooo, I did want any reasonable, somewhat knowledgable about computer stuff person would do—I went directly to the website.

I went online to Comcast and was able to log in because I had set the password info to “remember me.” I tried to change my password (but really “changed” it to the password I had in my little book so I wouldn’t have to try to remember another one). That didn’t work. I set up a chat with the Comcast guy online—Rajesh. OMGosh! Before he even started to help me he was trying to sell me other Comcast services. That made me think that somehow I had stumbled on to one of those scam websites. I kept looking to see if the screen looked like a bogus version of Comcast. It looked legit, plus I was the one who had initiated the chat. I continued on with Rajesh and changed the password yet again—exactly the way I had done it myself. Still, it didn’t work. Rajesh continued to try to “upgrade” my services. I just left the chat.

My next move was to set up an online chat with Apple Support. Those people are amazing! And, it always amazes me that it’s free! Or I could have gone in to the Genius Bar at the Apple store, but heck, I’d much rather solve my problems at home from my chair! With Apple, you have choices.

Anyway, the Apple tech walked me through several things—removing mail accounts and then adding them again. Nothing worked. We tried removing my iCould mail account (which, not only do I NOT use, I didn’t even know I had an iCloud mail account). For some reason, it would not allow me to do that. The online tech put me on hold for a couple minutes while she got her supervisor. The supervisor came on and asked if I would be okay with letting her “share” my screen. That means she could see exactly what I was seeing by accessing my computer. I’m okay with that. I trust those people! Plus, I have to be the one to open things, so it’s not like they can get in to my files. Since they can only “see” what I have open, I decided it was best to close all of my porno sights (only kidding).

After a couple minutes, the supervisor got it figured out by going to my iCloud account online. All was good and I was back in business. I breathed a sigh of relief and ended my call.

It was only then that I noticed I had a BIGGER problem. Everything—and I mean everything—on my desktop was GONE!!! OMGosh! I tried to remain calm. Everything on my desktop is, well, EVERYTHING I do and have! ALL of my files, notes, classes—just everything important. I checked photos—that was okay. Anything on my dock was okay. It was just my desktop items that were gone. I went to the “finder” and clicked on the desktop and was sure everything would be there. It wasn’t. Trying to remain calm, I took my own advice that I preach to any new Mac users. “If something isn’t acting right, just re-start your computer.” I did that. The only good thing about that is I didn’t get those weird pop up boxes asking me for my password 50 times. My computer opened normally, but my desktop was still gone.

I took a deep breath and tried to remember if my desktop was there before I noticed the mail problem. I try to keep a pretty neat and simple desktop.

As you can see, I do not have tons of things—just what I’m working on and then my files.

Then, I remembered that my desktop was there because while I was waiting for my “tech person” to come online for the chat, I was working on something that I opened from my desktop.

Sooo, it was back to an online chat with tech support. This time, she asked if she could just call me. I agreed. Within a few seconds, she called back. Not the same person I had before, but since the original person had taken good notes, this person was able to see what had been done before.

To make this situation worse—the day before, I had our audio/visual guy, Wade, out to talk to us about moving our tv and all of the other electronic equipment housed there. He is also my Mac guru. Part of the stuff that needs moving is my Mac Time-capsule—my backup drive. I told him that it was not working properly and my computer had not backed up since I got it at the first of the year. He said he’d take care of that too. Wellll, during this current situation, I realized how ironic it was that I was NOT backed up! Sheesh! To say I was bummed would be an understatement.

Back to tech support. It only took a few minutes for her to get it figured out. We went online to my iCloud account. All I can say is—I may not really understand “the cloud,” but thank GOD for it! My entire desktop was “saved” there! It was really a simple process to just click and drag everything back! What a relief!! I couldn’t believe my luck! I was so happy and all was right with the world.

I'll need to ask Wade if I need any other back up since we have "the cloud."

Anyway, but the time I finished dealing with all of this computer stuff---it was 2 hours and 45 minutes later!! There went my morning and my best laid plans. Sometimes life just doesn't work out the way you expected!

3 comments:

Yikes, why does it seem that updates do not work more than they do work? Glad you are back in business and hope Saturday finds you scrapping. I just finished paying bills and catching up online, so that's where I'm headed now.

So the Karma Pixies were working well. I always find that if I ever think I am doing well at something those little perishers are listening and immediately make things go wrong enough to frustrate me. I make sure always to thank them for the good stuff these days

Oh golly, stuff of nightmares. I had problems recently and had to allow an Apple techie on the far side of the world control my computer remotely for a while to get the problem fixed - it was unnerving! Glad it's all sorted now. And yes, backing up is such a crucial thing to do. Thank you for reminding me!

About Me

I taught organizational classes for scrapbooking around the country---from organizing your space and supplies to your pictures, planning pages and getting ready for a scrapbook retreat.
A few years ago, I developed an in-depth photo organization workshop called "Making the Most of My Memories." Once the pictures were organized in a way that made it easy to access any photo at a moment's notice, "A Year of Memories" was the next natural step.
Each month, I assign a topic and provide a kit of materials. The next month each person shares their layout with the group. It's so much fun to see how everyone interprets the theme and uses the same materials---yet each layout is completely different. At the end of the year, we each have a completed album. We're on year 8 now.